"Where is the book?" she demanded, glancing about the room.
"I—really don't know where I did leave it—" He scanned his cases with a troubled frown.
Tears sprang to the girl's eyes. She seemed to see Alice Twining's gentle, appealing face, as it had looked when she said, "I hope he doesn't think I am presumptuous in sending it." She dashed away the drops, and went on glancing along the rows of books. The minister had risen, but Polly darted ahead of him and pounced upon a small volume.
"Here it is!" She touched it caressingly, as if to make up for recent neglect.
"Your eyes are quicker than mine," said Mr. Parcell, taking it from her hand.
"Read it!" she said, and went back to her chair,
The minister obeyed meekly. Polly's eyes did not leave him.
He had opened the book at random, and with deepened color and a disturbed countenance had done as he was bidden. Surprise, pleasure, astonishment, delight,—all these the watcher saw in the face above the pages.
Five minutes went by, ten, twenty; still the Reverend Norman Parcell read on! Polly, mouse-quiet, divided her softening gaze between the clergyman and the clock. The pointers had crept almost to four when the telephone called. The reader answered. Then he walked slowly back from the instrument and picked up the book.
"Miss Twining must be a remarkable woman," he began, "to write such poetry as this—for it is poetry!"